Animated apparel

ABSTRACT

A flat panel display is disposed upon a useful article, such as wearing apparel or the like. In one embodiment, the display is integrated into a T-Shirt. A micro-controller is operationally connected to the display and a rotatable holder. The present invention further comprises a plurality of memory chips operationally mounted upon the rotatable holder. Each chip contains a graphics image to be displayed upon the flat panel display. The micro-controller further comprises a micro-processor, memory, reader device controller as well as a display device controller. Using a mechanical actuator, the user rotates the rotatable holder until a specific image is selected. Then, the selected memory chip is connected to the reader device controller so that the image can be read into memory and transferred to the display by the display device controller. In another embodiment of the present invention, a three dimensional covering is mounted upon the flat panel display.

BACKGROUND

The present invention generally relates to the field of animated displays. More particularly, the present invention comprises an apparatus and method of incorporating a display into a garment. Animation on a useful article is known in the art. For example U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,112,437 and 5,912,653 discloses an animated display on apparel. The present invention provides an innovated way of incorporating animation using an electro-mechanical unit into a garment.

SUMMARY

In a specific embodiment, the present invention provides a flat panel display disposed upon a T-shirt. An electro-mechanical unit is utilized to control the image displayed upon the flat panel display. In another embodiment, a three dimensional covering is overlay the flat panel display. In another embodiment, a projector control unit is utilized to display the image onto screen integrated into the T-Shirt.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an overall perspective view of the present invention.

FIG. 1A is an exploded view of the mechanical actuator.

FIG. 1B is an illustration of the flat panel display disposed upon the entire garment

FIG. 2 is a system block diagram of the present invention.

FIG. 3 exploded view of the micro-control unit.

FIG. 3A is an exploded view of the micro-control unit with the PDA functionality.

FIG. 4 is an exploded view of the image holder.

FIG. 4A is an exploded view of the PDA functionality implemented in the image holder.

FIG. 5 is an alternative embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 illustrates a three dimensional cover for the display.

DETAILED SPECIFICATION

Referring to FIG. 1 there is shown one aspect of the present invention in accordance of how it is to be worn. A flat panel display (100) disposed on a shirt (110). A control unit (120) is operationally connected to the flat panel display (100). As shown in FIG. 1A, the control unit (120) is mechanically actuated through switch (135) and selector indicator (130) shows the current image displayed upon the flat panel display (100). The flat panel display (100) can be liquid crystal technology, electronic ink, electronic paper, or OLED technology. In an alternative embodiment the display (100) can be disposed upon the entire front, back or both as shown in FIG. 1B.

The power source (115) provides the electrical current to power display (100) and control unit (120). The power source (115) can be a photovoltaic solar powered battery or small batteries. The batteries can be alkaline (AAA) or rechargeable batteries (lithium, nickel-cadium or nickel-metal hydride). Additionally, the control unit can have a power management system in place to extend the battery life.

Garment (110) of the present invention can be made of a multi-layered flexible material. The first layer is made of a slim flexible display material, for example, flexible liquid crystal display technology or organic light emitting diode technology such as electronic ink or electronic paper. With the slimmer display technology, less energy from the power source to generate the animated display is required.

The first layer of the garment (110) can be laminated with a protective cover which can be made of some type of polymer plastic. The laminated first layer is attached to another layer of material which can be a woven fabric or digitized woven fabric. In case of the digitized material, the fabric is made of woven metallic yarns, which are a conductor of electricity. Thus, once the metallic fabric is cut into the desired shape, the other electronic components to support the display (100) and the control unit (120) can be directly soldered and integrated into the digitized fabric. The integration of the electronic components into the digitized fabric provides the capability of animating the entire garment (110) as shown in FIG. 1B.

In case of the woven fabric, at least one small separate electronic control unit would have to be created to support the animated display of the entire apparel. The separate control unit would then be integrated and concealed between the multi-layers of material of the apparel.

Referring to FIG. 2, there is shown a system block diagram illustrating the hardware components of one embodiment of the present invention. The invention further includes a micro-control unit (120) operationally connected to power source (115) and display (100). Micro-control unit (120) comprises the hardware and software components required to provide a translation interface between display (100) and image holder (165). Image holder (165) is operationally mounted within support base (160). Reader connection (150) is operationally connected to reader connector interface (155) via a standard hardware pin connector interface. In this embodiment, image holder (165) is rotabably mounted within support base (160). Actuator (170) allows the user to rotate the image holder (165) until the desired image is indicated in the selector indicator (175). The selector indicator (175) can be a LED display, a static indicator displayed upon the actuator (170), or another suitable type of indication mechanism. When the user selects the desired image, the reader connector interface (155) connects to memory device upon which the desired image is stored.

Referring to FIG. 3 there is shown an exploded view of micro-control unit (120). Micro-control unit (120) further includes a micro-processor (210) operationally connected to a video decoder (200), graphics decoder (220), RAM (221), display interface (225) and reader connector (150). Microprocessor (210) is the brains of the computer which actually executes the software program instructions. When the power source is turned on, the system boots up the operating system software of the control unit (120). In this embodiment, the reader connector (150) contains the operating system software which coordinates the execution activity of hardware and software components of the system. After boot-up, the reader connector (150) is waiting on an interrupt from reader interface (155) shown in FIG. 2. Once the reader connector (155) receives the interrupt, a video input data stream or a graphics input data stream is created to access the image stored upon the memory device. If captured video is stored on the memory device (described below), a video input data stream is created for video decoder (200). If graphics is stored on the memory device, a graphics input data stream is created for graphics decoder (220). Video decoder software (200) execution is initiated to read the video input data stream and decompress the video data stream into the format required by the video processor. If both an audio image and a video or graphics image exist, then a separate audio input data stream is established. The display interface (225) has the necessary hardware and software components necessary to translate the decoded image and then display it. If necessary, the audio image is decoded and played via a sound chip. With LCD technology embodiments, a conventional video chip containing a processor and VRAM can provide the display interface (225). With OLED technology, display interface (230) would have to be specifically designed and built using necessary hardware and software components to translate the decoded message and display the image onto an OLED display.

Referring to FIG. 4, there is shown an exploded view of image holder (165). As shown the image holder (165) contain a plurality of operationally mounted memory devices (225). In some embodiments, the image holder (165) is a printed circuit board with soldered EEPROM, FLASH MEMORY, or RAM chips. Each chip contains a hardware connector interface which engages the reader interface (155) after selection by the user and disengages reader interface (155) after de-selection by the user. In other embodiments, the image holder (165) contains a plurality of mini-disks. Each mini-disk contains a hardware connector interface which engages the disk reader interface (155) after selection by the user and disengages disk reader interface (155) after de-selection by the user. Each chip would contain at least one captured video or graphic image. The captured image would have to electronically transferred or burned into the chip. The captured video image can be stored in MPEG or AVI format or another suitable video format. The captured image can be stored in both an audio and a video format. The graphics image can be stored in JPEG or another suitable format

Referring to FIGS. 3A and 4A, there is shown an alternative embodiment implementing the PDA functions. As shown in FIG. 4A, an additional memory device (226) containing the PDA input is operationally mounted upon image holder (165). This chip is also accessed mechanically by the actuator. Also, a separate input data stream is created to support the PDA decoder software (226). As depicted in FIG. 3A, PDA decoder software (201) translates the data stream and supports the PDA functionality i.e. calendar, word processing, calculator, and other conventional PDA functions. PDA decoder (201) controls the user interface to support the implemented PDA functions via display interface (225).

Referring to FIG. 5, there is shown a block diagram of an alternative embodiment of a mechanical design for the present invention. The mechanical design is composed of ten major components. The mechanical design use string, pulleys, film images, lens, light, pictorial frame, insulator, battery, wires and a small motor. The mechanical design can create animation if each picture is spun at 24 frames per second. The mechanical design can also rotate images that are not animated.

The zoetrope design is a simple mechanical design, which holds a certain number of pictorial frames and spins each frame. The zoetrope design is a device designed to spin each image while fully mounted on the shirt. The design is composed of pulleys, belts, a motor, a certain set up of pictorial frames, a lamp, lens and a battery source. The example zoetrope pertains to the use of a fully assembled pulley kit. The pulley kit (324) involves a motor (325), which is mounted and placed behind two varied sized pulleys. The larger pulley is wired to a small shaft pulley, which happens to be mounted in front of the medium pulley. The smaller pulley, which is mounted beside the smallest pulley, happens to be directly to the shaft on the motor. All components on the device are mounted down. The motor (325) can be powered by a six-volt battery pack (315). The battery pack (315) is directly wired to a current increase/decrease device. The device, which reduces or increases the speed of the motor, is directly wired to the battery pack; the device is back wired to the motor.

In the illustrated embodiment shown FIG. 5, a small projector (323) displays the image (318) onto the screen (317) contained on the apparel. This requires the presence of an intense light behind the film. The projector uses a shutter to block the light while the film is being transported to the next frame, a mechanism to transport the film, and a lens to focus the image onto the apparel display unit (321). The size of the image is limited by the capabilities of the lens and the amount of the light. The small projector (323) is mounted to the pulley kit (324) which is powered by the motor (325). The described configuration allows the film to rotate at 24 frames per second, thus, creating the illusion of animation.

Referring to FIG. 6, there is shown an alternative embodiment for the present invention. In this embodiment, a protective three-dimensional covering (375) is placed over the flat panel display (100). Covering (375) gives an illusion of three dimensional graphics. In yet another alternative embodiment, the control unit, and the image holder can be operationally mounted within the covering (375) such that when covering (375) is slidably engaged upon guide members (376, 377) the display device is activated and the image is displayed in three-dimension. 

1. An animated apparel device, comprising: a garment; a flat panel display disposed on the garment; an image holder operationally mounted within a support base, the image holder operationally connected to the flat panel display; a mechanical actuator for selecting a specific image from the image holder, the actuator being operationally connected to the image holder; a selection indicator for indicating to the wearer of the garment the selected image, the indicator being operationally connected to the actuator; a control unit being operationally connected to the image holder and the flat panel display; and a power source operationally connected to the control unit and the flat panel display.
 2. The device of claim 1 wherein the flat panel display is liquid crystal technology.
 3. The device of claim 3 wherein the flat panel display is OLED technology
 4. The device of claim 3 wherein the flat panel display is disposed upon at least the entire front of the garment.
 5. The device of claim 1 wherein the apparel is made of a metallic fabric.
 6. The device of claim 5 wherein the control unit is incorporated into the metallic fabric.
 7. The device of claim further comprising a three dimensional covering removably mounted upon the flat panel display.
 8. The device of claim 1 wherein the image holder further comprises: a plurality of memory devices operationally mounted upon the image holder; each memory device having at least one stored image; and each memory device having a reading interface for initiating access to the memory.
 9. The device of claim 8 further comprising a means for transferring a captured image into memory device.
 10. The device of claim 9 wherein the image holder is a printed circuit board having a plurality of operationally mounted MPEG memory devices.
 11. The device of claim 9 wherein the image holder is a printed circuit board having a plurality of operationally mounted EEPROM or RAM memory devices.
 12. The device of claim 9 wherein the image holder has a plurality of operationally mounted mini-disk memory devices.
 13. The device of claim 9 wherein the image holder is rotatably mounted within the support base.
 14. The device of claim 9 wherein the control unit further comprises: a microprocessor in communication with a reader component, a video decoder component, and a display interface component; the reader component operative to initiate the reading interface for reading the stored image from its corresponding memory device and creating based upon the stored image a video data stream or a graphics data stream; the video decoder component operative to translate the video data stream; the graphics decoder component operative to translate the graphics data stream; and the display interface component operative to display the translated data stream onto the flat panel display.
 15. The device of claim 9 wherein the control unit further comprising: a means for initiating the reading interface for reading the stored image from its corresponding memory device a means for creating based upon the stored image a video data stream or a graphics data stream; a means for decoding the video data stream; a means for decoding the graphics data stream; and a means for displaying the decoded data stream onto the flat panel display.
 16. A method of displaying animation on a garment, the method comprising: providing a flat panel display disposed onto the garment, the flat panel display being operationally connected to a control unit containing a plurality of memory devices that are mechanically selected by an actuator; rotating the actuator until a desired image contained within a memory device is displayed upon a selector indicator operationally connected to the control unit; selecting the desired image displayed in the indicator; initiating a reading interface between the memory device and the control unit; creating a video data stream or a graphics data stream based upon the selected image; transferring the video or graphics data stream over the reading interface; decoding the video data stream; decoding the graphics data stream; and displaying the decoded data stream onto the flat panel display.
 17. An animated apparel device, comprising: a garment; a flat panel display disposed on the garment; an image holder rotatably mounted within a support base, the image holder containing a plurality of films; a motor operationally connected the support base, the motor for continuously rotating the support base; a projector being operationally associated with the image holder such that as the image holder rotates the illusion of animation is created; and a power source operationally connected to the projector and the flat panel display. 